Occasionally a Mugh or Arracanese boat, of peculiar construction, with its broad-faced crew and banks of oars, laden with bees’ wax, ivory, &c., glided by, or a raft, heavily laden with piles of wood or charcoal for the Calcutta market, swept past us, a momentary relief to the death-like loneliness of the place: the wood they carry is cut and collected by a particular class of men, who pursue their perilous trade in these jungles. Sometimes, too, the continuity of the forest was broken by a cleared patch, and piles of timber ready for lading; or the hut of one those religious devotees or fakeers, whose austerity acquires for them the respect of the ignorant and superstitious boatmen, whom, by their charms and incantations, they profess to insure from assaults of the alligator and the tiger. Boatmen, however, and even fakeers, are continually carried off; but as superstition always counts the hits, and never reckons the misses, a few favourable predictions sets all to rights again. At one of these fakeer stations, we made a halt, and a more wretched locality for a man to take up his abode in imagination can scarcely picture. A small spot of about half a quarter of an acre, was cleared from the forest, and in the centre of it was a fragile hut of thatch and bamboo, which a puff of wind might have blown away; a tapering bamboo, with a small red pennon, rose above it, and a little clay durgah for prayer adjoined, to indicate the sacred calling of the lonely occupant. As we brought to, the fakeer came down to the boat, and was most respectfully received by the crew. He was an aged man, withered up like a potsherd, and smeared with dust and ashes; his long, grizzled, and matted beard swept his breast, and a tiger skin was thrown over his shoulders; he held a long stick in one hand, on which he supported his bent, decrepid form, whilst in the other he carried a dried gourd-shell, or calibash, to receive the contributions of the boatmen. Here was a Trappist of the East, submitting to every danger and privation from motives somewhat similar to those which actuate the ascetic order all the world over—motives which we cannot but respect, however mistaken we may deem them. Bidding adieu to this recluse of the woods, we once more pursued our course to the eastward, and after nearly a day’s rowing, changed it to the north, following the line of one of the many rivers which, spreading out as they approach the sea in various lateral directions in the Sunderbunds, form that intricate maze. In a little time, the forest became less dense, and a few miles more brought us again into the cleared and cultivated country. Our eyes once more rested with pleasure upon the green rice-fields, the patch of sugar-cane, the cluster of coco-nuts, and the busy haunts of men. “Well, Mr. Gernon,” said Augustus, “I suppose you are not sorry to be nearly at the end of your voyage.”